


Hydrangeas and Daisies

by Eristastic



Series: Under(fairy)tales [5]
Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Fluff and Angst, Other, Trust Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-07
Updated: 2016-03-08
Packaged: 2018-05-25 09:52:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,326
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6189859
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eristastic/pseuds/Eristastic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“They say I’m the demon that comes when people call its name.”</p><p>Shouldered with a frankly unfair amount of impossible tasks, Asriel finds help from an...unexpected source, to say the least. The only trouble is how to repay it.</p><p> </p><p>[Rumpelstiltskin AU. Look, it makes sense, I swear]</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> 'Cover page' can be found [here](http://eristastic.tumblr.com/post/144048295732/kind-of-cover-pages-for-my-fics-cloves-and).

It started out small, as such things tend to.

Asriel had always been happy to do people favours. Carrying parcels here, bringing messages there, picking loads up, searching for lost possessions, showing people their way: all the little things. He didn’t really mind, and his mother would have had Words with him if he hadn’t been helpful, so it was just something he did. It was just that things got a little out of hand once he hit his growth spurt.

Apparently not looking like a child anymore meant that he suddenly looked like a packhorse, and the favours increased a hundredfold. And yes, okay, he was very strong and very big (and very proud of that), and yes, he was the prince so he had to help his ‘subjects’, for lack of a better word, but…

It was really getting a little much, especially once the magic practitioners started to join in. There were only so many magical ingredients he could collect in his free time, but nobody seemed to understand that. And it wasn’t as if he could _refuse_ : wouldn’t that look like favouritism? Wouldn’t people start to think he was being selfish?

Well, he didn’t really have the answers to that. It was bad enough that he was finding it harder and harder to be enthusiastic: he couldn’t let anyone else know that he was flagging.

And that was how he found himself up at midnight one night, searching for frogs washed in the light of the full moon, or whatever _that_ meant.

He was ready to give up. He could barely keep his eyes open after a morning full of his mother’s tutoring and an afternoon of basically being the city slave (and maybe he was a little bitter, sure, but he’d allow himself that, just this once). His body was rebelling against him, stumbling over the marsh hillocks and splashing down heavily into the murky puddles. He was miserable.

The frogs kept hopping away into the shadows, too.

“I can’t _take_ this anymore!” he shouted to the cloudless night sky, hands balled up at his sides. “My fur’s sodden, I’m exhausted, I’m never going to be able to catch these goshdarn frogs, and this is so useless! I’ve had enough!”

Predictably enough, his voice echoed a little in his own ears and then faded into nothing. No frog came hopping helpfully his way. He didn’t even know what moonlight-washed frogs were supposed to _look_ like.

Slumping onto a patch of not-too wet grass, he shoved his chin into his hands and pouted. Waiting for the frogs to come back after his little episode, he started mentally ticking off chores for the next day. There were the usual deliveries to do, the usual messages he’d no doubt be given at the very last minute (just as he was about to do something else), there were the east baker’s gutters to clean, potion recipes to copy down for the blind witch on Clover street, the new shipment of cloth to haul in from the river for the north-western tailor…

Asriel sighed and bit back tears. He couldn’t even remember the last time he’d had a free afternoon. As usual, a weak hope that he might complain to his parents fluttered through his mind and he quickly squashed it.

He was the prince. If he couldn’t do this, how could he be expected to take the throne when he grew up?

Not that the throne had much appeal to him either, but he squashed that thought down too. No point in being needlessly negative, even when his claws were fair freezing off and he still hadn’t found the darn frogs.

“Someone doesn’t look like they’re having much fun,” came a voice from behind him.

He whirled around, cringing a little when his hand leaned into a muddy patch for support. Sitting casually on a strangely tall mound that definitely hadn’t been there before, was a teenager about his age, swinging their legs and smiling at him.

“Huh…?” he said intelligently, feeling all his words leave him. He thought he might be forgiven that, considering how hypnotising the person looked. They wore a loose shirt and trousers, covered in a heavy hooded cloak with the hood off so he could see them properly, and he was absurdly grateful for that. Okay, so they were skinny and unhealthily pale and had what looked like permanent shadows under their eyes – none of that mattered. Their russet hair fell over their face in jagged cuts, falling just short of their jawline, their smile was wide and almost predatory (but not quite unkind), and their eyes were the colour of poppies if poppies had starlight shone through them.

He might have been gaping a little.

“What are you looking for?” they asked, still swinging their legs idly.

“Ah! Um, uh, I…” he scratched the back of his head nervously and immediately wished he hadn’t when he felt mud cake on his fur. The person grinned wider, laughing, but not exactly mockingly. Just short of nastiness.

Asriel tried again. “I’m looking for, um…moonlight-washed frogs,” he said sheepishly. “Someone asked me to get them for a spell.”

“Really? Wow, they sure screwed you over on that one.” They’d stopped laughing and hopped to their feet, the very image of confidence even though they looked so frail that Asriel was fairly sure he could break their bones with a single hug.

“What do you mean?”

“Moonlight-washed frogs only come out when it’s new moon. Either your master’s an idiot or they wanted to play you for one.”

“Oh.”

“Oh indeed.” They surveyed the marsh, hands on hips, and stopped abruptly. Then they grinned again. “That said, there’s one nesting right over there. _You’ll_ never find it, but I’d be happy to get it for you.”

“Really?” Asriel scrambled to his feet, feeling more than a little giddy to see how much shorter this person was than him. “You’d do that?”

“Sure I would. For a price.”

“Oh. And, um, what would that be?”

“Well,” they kicked something dark away from their boots, “traditionally I’d ask for your first-born child, but I’ll be quite honest: children make me want to turn to stone. So I’ll pass on that. How about you just open a tab?”

“A tab?” Asriel repeated dully, following as the person began to stride across the marsh as surely as if they were in broad daylight.

“Yeah. We’ll just keep adding favours, and when I want to, I’ll ask something of you in return. How does that sound?”

They turned and he had to stop short so he didn’t walk straight into them. They flinched back, making sure the two of them didn’t touch, but hid it well under a guise of confidence. And it was a guise, Asriel was coming to see. He swallowed heavily at the sight of them looking up at him, waiting, their eyes just a little wild.

He could barely think, but…a tab meant he’d be able to see them again, didn’t it?

“That sounds _great_ …”

They nodded approvingly. “Excellent. Wait here a little: I’ll fetch your blasted frog for you.”

It took them maybe a minute of rummaging in the earth, which, coincidentally, was about the time it took to get his heart to calm down. Then they turned back around and held something out to him with muddy hands.

It was, undoubtedly, a frog, but maybe half the size of any he’d ever seen, and its back was covered in milk-white lumps. It looked hugely disgruntled at having been picked up and it was only the person’s impatient foot-tapping that persuaded Asriel to pick it up and stick it in the jar he’d brought for the occasion. Stowing that away in his bag with a grimace of disgust, he looked back up to thank them, but they were gone.

The marsh was completely empty again, save for him and the chorus of hundreds of elusive frogs.

He hadn’t even got their name.

 

It turned out that the witch had just got the dates mixed up, and she was more than surprised to see him turn up the next day with the frog. Asriel allowed himself some pride at that, and then hastily shoved it away as everyone else apparently took his unexpected success as an invitation to ask more favours.

Life really wasn’t fair.

But he soldiered through anyway, smiling and nodding and feeling his protests die in his mouth just as he tried to point out that he’d been working for oh, ten hours straight, and maybe a little free time wouldn’t go amiss. So in the end he said nothing, and he definitely didn’t have the time to say anything to his parents about the person he’d met the night before.

Not that that kept him from thinking about them.

For long, long days, things went much the same as before, without any opportunity to go back to the marshes and see if they were there waiting for him. He felt a little guilty (and more than a little disappointed), but he’d opened a tab. It wasn’t as if he’d never see them again: he owed them, didn’t he? So he just had to wait a little bit. And then a little longer. And then a lot longer, and then it was two weeks after the night with the frogs and a witch had landed him with yet another seemingly impossible task.

Perhaps that was something witches liked to do, he thought bitterly as he searched through bushes on his hands and knees. Maybe they liked to give out ridiculous challenges to people who didn’t know better so that they could have a good laugh about it in their magic practitioner tea parties or whatever. Maybe he _was_ just being made a fool of. It’d make a lot of sense. After all, if he weren’t a fool, he probably wouldn’t be crawling under hydrangea bushes at some horrific hour of the morning.

He really wanted to cry.

There were branches and sap and dirt all over him, covering him with the unpleasant feeling of being unclean. He’d been up for hours, long before the sun had risen, searching through the ridiculous amount of hydrangeas on the outskirts of the marshes, trying to find the so-called golden bloom that the witch had promised him he’d find there.

Shirking back from another spider web (inhabited, because of course it was), he whimpered and backed out of the bush. It was beginning to rain, too. For a few seconds, Asriel entertained the thought that that might make him feel better, or at least cleaner, but then the chill set in and he realised he’d been stupid to even hope. Hours spent on a fool’s mission and he had nothing to show for it but a coat covered in mess and a budding cold. He sighed, shivering as he did so.

“Why don’t you give up?”

His head snapped up, and there they were: sitting on the hydrangea bush with their chin in their hands, watching him.

“You weren’t there before,” he said slowly.

“No, you’re right: I moved here. That’s how movement tends to work.”

“I mean…you just _appeared_.” He was sounding steadily more stupid, but they didn’t seem to mind. Their hood was up this time, sheltering them from the rain.

“Maybe I did,” they said. “What’s it to you?”

Well, that was him told, then.

“Not much,” he shrugged.

“Wonderful. So, why don’t you give up? You look like a drowned rat, you know. A pretty sizeable one, but still.”

He shrugged again. “I can’t let them down.”

“Who?”

“The witch who asked me to do this for them.”

“Do you owe them anything?”

“No, not really.”

They clicked their tongue. “Then what’s tying you to them? If they’re demanding enough to get someone they barely know in this position, they’re not worth it.”

Asriel slumped on the wet grass, sighing again. “I’m the prince. I need to help my…my people out.”

They stayed quiet for a second too long to sound natural, but quickly covered that up with a scoff. “That just sounds like an excuse to martyr yourself.”

“Well, it’s not. I really do need to help them, it’s just…everyone keeps asking so much.”

“Then you shouldn’t bother. You need to look out for yourself, first and foremost: that’s just common sense. In case you were wondering, scrabbling under bushes in the rain at some godforsaken hour of the morning is not common sense.”

“Tell me about it,” he said in a pained voice, tracing circles on the grass next to him with a finger.

“Then just give up.” They spread their arms and raised an eyebrow at him. His despondency was eclipsed for a second by a dry mouth and a pounding heartbeat.

“I…I can’t do that. I really can’t.”

They looked at him and shrugged dismissively, tipping their head back to face the rain. It dripped down their throat and he couldn’t tear his eyes away.

“If you’re that set on helping people who clearly don’t care about you, I could find what you’re looking for,” they said.

“Would you?” There was an embarrassing amount of relief in his voice but he couldn’t bring himself to care. Pushing himself to his knees, he knelt in front of their perch and gazed up at them with as much gratitude as he could put in a smile. “That would be so helpful!”

“Sure, whatever.” With that cocksure grin, they looked down at him again. “It’ll just go on your tab anyway.”

“That’s fine!” he chirped, his voice a little tinny.

“Neat. You’re looking for the golden bloom, aren’t you?”

“Oh…yeah, I am. How did you know?”

With reckless ease, they jumped off the hydrangea bush, sending petals flying as they landed in a puddle that splashed all over his feet. “It’s the only thing anyone would want for magic around here. Give me a second, would you?”

It took them a few minutes to pluck the thing, hidden under layers of periwinkle blue flowers a few bushes away from him. Then they came back, adjusting their hood with a giant head of flowers in their hands, glowing like worked gold even in the rain. They held it out to him, but Asriel hesitated.

“I’m sorry,” he said a little weakly, “but I didn’t get your name last time.”

“Is that right.”

“Um, so…what are you called?”

They looked at him for an uncomfortably long time without saying anything. Then, “You go first.”

“Oh. Sure, um, I’m Asriel. And you…?”

Still holding the flower out pointedly, they said, “They say I’m the demon that comes when people call its name.”

Asriel blinked. “That’s…uh, that’s quite the name you’ve got there.”

“It’s not a name, dummy.”

“Okay, I _got_ that. But what is your name?”

“Like I said,” they frowned pointedly, “I'm just the demon who comes when you call its name. If I don't tell you my name, you can never use me. Get it yet?”

“Oh,” Asriel said, because it didn’t seem like there was much else to say. “But you do have one?”

“I do.”

“That’s alright, then,” he smiled, hoping to make them smile again too. It didn’t quite work, but their frown loosened a bit.

“Great. Look, can you just take the flower?”

“Oh, yeah, sorry.” He reached out to take it, holding onto their wrist as he did so, and they stiffened up at his touch. Seeing their reaction, he let their wrist drop like hot coals.

“Oh, gosh, I’m really sorry! I just…I didn’t want you to disappear again.”

They’d closed up, staring at the ground with their arms braced at their sides.

“I’m…I’m really sorry,” he repeated softly, barely making it above the sound of the rain around the two of them.

They shook their head stiffly, like one of the mechanical dolls he saw in toy shop windows every day as he walked down the high street. He wasn’t sure what they meant by it.

“I just…” he started, but broke himself off. He’d ruined it. “I don’t think you’re a demon,” he ended with, because he couldn’t possibly make this any worse.

Stroking their arm like a cat nursing its wounds, they shook their head again and this time it was slightly more fluid. “I’ll see you next time,” they said in a strangled voice. “Don’t let yourself get used by everyone again.”

“I’ll try.”

In a blink they were gone again, but it didn’t feel quite as empty as he’d been worried it might. Carrying the golden flower tight in his arms, he walked back to the city.

 

They met again and again. Word spread that Asriel could find any ingredients the practitioners might need and soon they swamped him with orders and requests. Most of them he could do himself, but every few days there was one he just couldn’t manage and then they’d appear to help him, adding each favour to his tab with a grin.

It was hardly a sacrifice.

But, slowly, the requests became more and more shameless. He never turned them down (he couldn’t, he wouldn’t, he wasn’t allowed to) but his nights became restless with stress, his days he spent skittish, and soon he barely even had the time to see his parents.

“You look horrible.”

Asriel didn’t flinch – he nodded instead, rubbing his aching eyes as the self-professed demon watched him from the top of a bale of hay.

“What have they got you doing this time?” They shrugged off their hood and the light breeze shook their hair out for them. It was almost enough to refresh Asriel’s exhausted brain.

“…spinning straw into gold,” he mumbled.

They blinked and promptly burst into peals of laughter. Asriel let them: he figured it was justified.

“Oh _wow_ ,” they said once they’d recovered enough to speak. “They’re really fucking you over, aren’t they? You can’t be stupid enough to think they’re not.”

“I know…” He sat down heavily in the pile of straw he’d been looking at miserably. “But what am I supposed to do? I can’t turn them down. Thanks to you, I’ve been doing so many miracles lately that they just expect me to do everything they throw at me.”

“This is why you should have listened to me when I told you to refuse. I’m not even saying you need to turn everything down, although you should, you know. Just once a day or something would be fine. Maybe then you wouldn’t find yourself being stretched out until you can’t even sleep. When _was_ the last time you had a full night’s sleep anyway?”

Asriel had to count it in his head, which he freely admitted was a bit pathetic. “Six days? Maybe?”

“Oh geez.” They swung themself off the bale and walked over, crouching in front of him and taking his head in their hands to look at him fondly. He thought his heart might burst from his chest just at the touch of their hands, and very wisely kept his mouth shut.

“You’re so stupidly generous,” they said, smiling.

It would have been the easiest thing in the world for him to lean towards them or to take their hands in his, so he looked down instead. They would touch him now (but never as much as this – this was so new, so intoxicating), but he wasn’t allowed to touch them first. That was fair, he understood, and he never wanted to see them close up on him the way they had before, but it was still so difficult. He wanted to touch them.

With a quick rub of his ears (a favourite place of theirs to stroke, for whatever reason), they straightened up and held a hand out to him.

“Come on: I’ll spin your straw into gold for you, so don’t look so put upon.”

He hesitated. They’d never let him hold their hand before (honestly, they were never usually this tactile: he could barely believe it) and he didn’t know what to do. Obviously he wanted to take it, but his mind was swimming at the very idea. Then they wriggled their fingers impatiently and he couldn’t hold back: he grabbed their hand and delighted in how their fingers wrapped around his. They were nowhere near strong enough to pull him up, but that was alright: he could do that easily by himself. It was more than enough that they’d trusted him.

Maybe that was what made him ask.

“Could you…I mean, it’s been a while, so…what’s your name?”

Their smile faded. “It doesn’t matter. I told you: just call me ‘the demon’ or something, I don’t care. Just not my name.”

But that wasn’t what he wanted.

“It’s just a name, I know, but…I really want to know,” he tried to explain. He was finding it hard to breath, hard to look them in the eye, he was so nervous. How was he supposed to say that he couldn’t stand not knowing the name of the person he loved? That was way too much: he wasn’t anywhere near that brave!

“And I’m telling you that it doesn’t matter.”

“But it does, doesn’t it? A name makes you, you. I know you have one, but I can’t just keep calling you a demon. I don’t even think of you like that!”

“Asriel, I don’t want to tell you,” they said, voice closed up. They were loosening their fingers but he couldn’t let go.

“Please! It means a lot to me to know your name, and you…you mean a lot to me…”

They weren’t listening. Instead, their smile was stretching their cheeks like they were made of clay, their eyes blazing.

“If all you wanted was to control me from the start, you should have made that clear,” they said, the words clipped and hard.

Asriel’s stomach sank. “No! No, that’s not what I meant!”

“You should have just said you were like everyone else.”

“I’m telling you: I never wanted to control you, I just…I just wanted…!”

“Don’t lie. There’s no point. The only reason you would want to know my name is to control me.”

He let their hand drop, realising he’d been holding them too tightly. “I want to know because I care about you!”

They weren’t there to hear it, though: the second he’d let them go, he’d been alone in the field, surrounded by scattered hay and dread that threatened to crush him.


	2. Chapter 2

Asriel ran as fast as he could, carried by the fear that he’d ruined something he couldn’t afford to lose. Something he didn’t _want_ to lose.

He wasn’t ready to lose them.

But good intentions weren’t enough: he had no idea where to go. They’d never told him anything about where they lived, what they did, if they had friends or not (privately, he hoped not and then shoved _that_ thought straight back into denial territory). He didn’t have any leads, but he’d run from the field as if real demons had been at his heels rather than a scattering of abandoned straw, and now he was at the marsh, trying to catch his breath. Sweat slunk through his fur and he ignored it, whipping his head around as if they might miraculously be waiting for him.

They weren’t, of course. He didn’t deserve that.

It was coming to the end of the afternoon, sun hanging low in the sky over the woods that lay just beyond the marshland, and as he scanned the trees, Asriel could see a lamp flare into life through them. He ran again, stumbling through the cramping in his legs and lungs. The mud and grass squelched under his feet, splattering his legs, but he broke through the treeline and into the woods and then there were only fallen leaves and loose soil to worry about.

Just as he was reaching the last of his energy, he broke into a clearing. There was, indeed, a lamp: a pretty, flower-shaped thing hanging off a tall staff. The owner of the staff looked at him curiously and disappointment struck through what hope he’d managed to salvage. It wasn’t _them_. He’d been an idiot to think it could have been. Gosh, he’d been such an idiot!

The child in front of him coughed pointedly.  “Are you alright?”

For a few seconds, he couldn’t answer, trying to get his breath back, but the child waited. They had to be about half Asriel’s size and many years younger, given how young their face looked. Their skin was as dark as the trees around them and their hair was darker, fluffy around their face and falling into even darker eyes. They had the smell of magic on them, strangely, but Asriel supposed they could easily be an apprentice if they weren’t old enough to be a witch: their cloak was definitely too decorated to _not_ belong to a practitioner of some sort.

Eventually, he replied, “Yeah, sorry…I’m fine.”

The child cocked their head to the side with an expression that made it clear they didn’t believe him (that was fair), and then they walked over to him and held out their free hand, waiting for him to take it. He did. It wasn’t like he had any idea where else to go. It wasn’t like he could think of going back home in his state.

They led him steadily through the woods, their footsteps punctuated by the heavy hits of the staff on the ground, and while it had to be far too heavy for them, they never faltered. The sun had almost gone down completely when they made it to a small cottage in the dip between two slopes ridged by trees. There was a little vegetable garden beside it and a store of firewood, and the child hooked their staff on a hook outside the front door before pulling him inside.

Somehow, he couldn’t find the energy to care about the chores he was missing, the tasks he hadn’t been able to do. As he slumped into a chair and rested his wobbly legs, they put a small kettle on to boil and settled down on the other chair at the table that was barely big enough for one. There was an unlit fireplace in one wall, next to a tiny bed covered with what looked like a home-made quilt.

“So what’s wrong?” the child asked quietly. Their voice was husky, like they weren’t used to talking much.

Asriel hesitated. “Do you know about a demon that comes when you call its name? They’re from somewhere around here, I think.”

“I do.”

He brightened up. “You really know them? Then…do you know how to find them?”

“You just have to call their name,” the child shrugged.

“But I don’t know their name.”

“Oh. You’re right: that does put you in quite the predicament, doesn’t it?” They looked at him sympathetically.

“Do you know how I could find their name?”

They raised a hand to their mouth, like they were thinking. “I do, but…If it’s to take revenge on them, I wouldn’t advise it. Just let it go. I’ll try and help you, so just leave them alone.”

“That’s not it at all!” A growl found its way into his voice, it came out so viciously, and he hastily swallowed and lowered his head. “I’m sorry. I just…that’s not why. I just want to see them again. I think I ruined everything and…and all I want is to see them again: no one’s ever treated me like they do! No one understands me like they do, no one makes me feel as comfortable as they do! But I was so, so stupid and I messed it all up, and…!”

This was worse than the night with the frogs, this was worse than the downpour among the hydrangeas, this was worse than all the mounting stress of months. He felt so _miserable_.

The child patted him on the hand gently. “It can’t be that bad.”

“It is, though!” he wailed.

They let him wallow in misery and self-pity for a few minutes while they saw to the whistling kettle and made the tea. Then, setting a steaming cup in front of him, they said, “You know they aren’t really a demon, don’t you?”

He nodded, barely lifting his head off the table. He’d guessed that much.

Almost absent-mindedly, they began to stroke his ears. “They’re actually cursed.”

“I thought they might be,” he mumbled.

“If you agree to break their curse, I’ll tell you where they are.”

“Really?!” He pushed himself up off the table and stared at them (maybe a little hawkishly but he couldn’t help it). “You’d do that?”

“If you break their curse, yeah, I’d be happy to.” They sipped their tea in a relaxed way that guilted him into doing the same.

“So what do I have to do to break the curse?” he asked once his mouth felt less like it was charred. “I’ll do anything, anything you ask, I promise!”

They looked at him in a concerned way. “It’s not _that_ difficult. You just need to tell them you love them for them, and mean it, and they just have to believe you. It’s all very simple, really.”

They sipped their tea again, apparently oblivious to how his cheeks were burning at the very idea of doing _anything_ that brazen. Lowering the cup, they grinned. “It should be easy, right?”

He made a sound like a beached fish (which is to say, not much sound at all) and they beamed at him.

“So!” They clapped their hands together cheerfully. “Do you want to know where they are?”

 

Asriel couldn’t make his mind up over whether the walk was a blessing or not. The little witch had sent him on his way along a path lit up by glowing flowers blossoming and wilting in the air, around knee-height, and he’d been walking for an hour or more, which, as it happened, turned out to be plenty of time to have second thoughts.

Oh, they were all small second thoughts, nothing that would actually stop him. But he couldn’t stop thinking about how badly he’d messed everything up the last time he tried to…well, do anything to show them how he cared, and it didn’t exactly fill him with courage. If anything, it filled him with butterflies.

He had so much to tell them, so much to ask them: he wanted to ask them everything, even the things that sent little balls of terror straight to the pit of his stomach. Even the things that he didn’t want to ask, about what they’d meant when they’d said everyone always used them. There was just so much, and he didn’t trust his mouth to get it all out.

But he was hardly about to turn back.

An hour and a half in, the path began to snake down a hill and he had to hold onto branches as he scrambled down the side, down into a field of daisies that stretched out as far as he could see. The little glowing flowers held the path for him but he didn’t need it anymore: there was a tiny house cosied up near a river that ran through the field, and he hurried towards it, ignoring the grass and daisies that carefully bent out of the way of his feet.

Without thinking, he knocked at the door. The sky all around him should have been dark, but it was filled with so many stars that he found it easy to see his shaking hand as it fell from the rough wood; stars and constellations he’d never seen in his life. It felt like they were covering this place, shielding it from everything else.

The golden flowers around him faded away into the air when the door opened.

For maybe a second, they looked at him and everything was wonderful: perfect, even, with their shock lit up in the starlight and their eyes glowing. And then they froze up completely and slammed the door again.

“Wait, no!” He would have called their name, but of course that was the source of this whole problem, so he settled for staring at the door desperately as if it would spontaneously combust if he threw enough emotion at it. Needless to say, it didn’t.

“Please, just let me talk!” he tried again.

“How did you _get_ here?!” Their voice was muffled by the walls but he could still hear the fragility in it.

“There was a witch in the woods, they showed me the way.”

A small pause. “I’m going to kill Frisk.”

“No, please, just…I just wanted to talk to you.”

“Oh, that’s nice,” they said in a brittle voice. “How are you doing? I’m fine, I’m not going to tell you my name. Now go away, talk over.”

He leant against the door, feeling it creak under his weight and knowing he could break it with one well-aimed punch. “That’s not why I came here!”

“Like hell it isn’t! Go _away_ , Asriel! I gave you your favours, I’ll wipe away your tab, I don’t care: just go.”

“I’m telling you: I don’t want any of that!”

“Then what the fuck could you possibly want? I can’t give you anything else. I can’t give anything but favours, I can’t, so just _stop_.” They were babbling now, as if they could barely hear him, but he couldn’t _not_ hear their voice and all the hysteria twisting it. “I can’t do anything more for you but I won’t hold your debt over you, I promise, so leave me alone! It’ll be better like that, it’ll be so great, we’ll never have to see each other again and you’ll be so happy living your life as the prince who performed miracles, so just go and do it! You’ll have all the love of your people, just like you wanted! Doesn’t that sound great? Doesn’t that sound marvellous? It’s everything you wanted!”

They laughed hoarsely and he thought he could hear the creak of a mattress.

“That isn’t what I want,” he said.

The mattress creaked again, over and over, screeching in answer.

“Can I come in?”

They didn’t say no, but they didn’t say anything so it didn’t make a difference. He dug his claws into the soft pads of his hands, trying to work up whatever courage he supposedly had. It wasn’t as difficult as he’d thought it might be: in the face of what they’d said, everything he’d been struggling with felt a lot smaller all of a sudden. He wanted to touch them so, so much.

“Um…look, can you hear me?”

No answer.

He took a deep breath. “I…um, I’m sorry, I should have told you earlier. I want…I mean, the reason I want to know your name is because I love you. I thought it was weird that I love you this much but I don’t even know your name, you know? So. Um. That’s why.”

There weren’t even any creaks of the mattress to answer him. He thought he was going to start hyperventilating, but then the door swung open. He tried not to sprint through.

The cottage was a lot bigger inside than it looked, far bigger than the little witch’s (or Frisk’s, he supposed, if that was their name). Off in the corner was a bed and they were sitting on it, their hands digging into the sheets and mattress so tightly that their veins stuck out sharply above their knuckles. They were watching him, lips pursed together.

He hadn’t really planned what to do after confessing (or he had, but it had involved a lot more flower petals and gentle music and things he’d never say out loud) and it felt like his mind was on fire trying to work out what to do. They were still staring at him and he knew he had to do something soon or he was going to ruin his second chance just as thoroughly as he had his first. So he took a deep breath and did the first thing that came to mind: he knelt in front of them, putting himself just a little below them for once. It wouldn’t really help to be towering over them, he figured.

But that left the hardest part: getting words from his scrambled mind through his mouth and out into the air. He swallowed drily.

“I know…um, I know it can’t mean much, but I really do love you. It’s not because you granted me favours – although I’m grateful for that, believe me! – it’s just because it’s you. Because you treat me the way I want to be treated. Because it…it feels like you understand me. Because I keep thinking that I want to understand you too, and I want to know everything about you, and because I think you could probably talk about the most boring thing in the world for hours and I’d still want to listen because it’s you saying it.

“And I’ve never thought you were a demon. I don’t know what your life’s been like, what happened to make you think that, but that’s not how I see it at all. And, if it’s possible, I think…I’d like to help you see you the way I do. I mean, you fascinate me! You’re everything! I know you’re not the greatest person in the world or anything, but I don’t mind at all! You’re so beautiful, you’re so interesting, and I…”

Gingerly, he put his hand on theirs, making sure they didn’t flinch away. They didn’t, and he gently (so very gently) pulled their fingers off the mattress and held their hand as carefully as if it were a butterfly. Not quite knowing what he was doing, he brought it to his mouth and kissed it.

“I really love you.”

Keeping his eyes on their hand, he let the room fall into silence. Slowly, the sounds of crickets outside and the fire crackling in the fireplace across the room started to fade back into his hearing, pushing past the nerves that were a hair’s breadth from suffocating him.

“Say it again.”

Eyes wide, not quite believing it, he looked up. Their gaze was every bit as intense as before: he couldn’t see any difference at all, but they’d definitely said it.

So he obeyed gladly.

“I really love you. I love you so much, I can’t stop thinking about you. Thinking about meeting you was the only thing that got me through all those jobs everyone kept throwing at me. Wasn’t that stupid? I took on more than anyone could have expected me to, just because I wanted to see you again.”

They blinked, the corners of their lips quivering: a tiny crack in their mask and he couldn’t stop his hand from tightening on theirs. They tightened back.

“If you’re telling the truth,” they said guardedly, without any emotion at all, “you’re an idiot.”

“I know.”

“An idiot with horrendous taste.”

“I know.” He couldn’t keep a smile from rising on his face.

They looked about to cry, but not: a tenseness around their eyes, their jaw held stiff and high. He reached up his other hand to stroke it, praying that they wouldn’t hate him for doing what he had to. And he had to, he really did.

But they didn’t flinch back. If anything, they leaned into his hand, but that could just have been his imagination .Whatever it was, it made his heart leap in his chest.

They still weren’t saying anything, so he opened his dry mouth and tried to force more words out.

“You don’t have to feel anything for me,” –but oh, he didn’t think he’d be able to bear it if they didn’t- “so just know that I really, really do love you. I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you earlier, back when it mattered.”

“It matters now!”

He started at how serious they looked, but then his uncontrollable smile was back. “Yeah…yeah, it does. So…you don’t mind?”

“Like hell I’d _mind_ ,” they said, their voice shaking. They weren’t looking at him and it seemed like they were trying to make themself as small as possible. They still looked so tense.

He wanted to touch them.

He still had their hand in his and he kissed it again, gently turning it over so he could kiss from their palm up to their wrist, kissing over the stark blue veins of their forearm. They shivered slightly and when he looked up, they were looking down at him. If he’d thought their eyes had been dazzling the first time he’d seen them, it was nothing compared to now. He could barely breathe.

They sucked in a breath. “I’m Chara.”

It took a moment to understand what they meant, and then he was smiling, trembling all over with happiness, terrified he’d lose control and leap up to hug them but wanting to _so badly_.

“I really love you, Chara,” he said, and, as softly as he could, he lifted a hand to their chin and angled their head to meet his when he leant up to kiss them.

It was a short kiss and completely inexperienced but he thought he was going to lose his mind, wrapped up in the smell of them, the feel of them, everything he’d wanted so desperately. If there really were miracles, this was the only one he wanted.

When he broke away (regretfully, hating that he had to or he’d actually go crazy), they looked flushed and leant down to rest their head on his neck, sending shivers down his spine. Still keeping one hand on theirs, he slowly stroked their hair with the other.

“You believe me, right?” he said quietly, reluctant but needing to know.

“I want to,” Chara mumbled into his shoulder.

“You can. I can’t lie to you, you know? I can barely tell you the truth without losing it!”

“And you _are_ unbelievably good-hearted,” they agreed, gently prodding the pads on his hand and making his heart skip with each touch.

He laughed, mostly to release his nerves. “Yeah, I guess.”

Their free hand dropped to his waist, idly running fingers through his fur there. “Say it again.”

“I love you, Chara.”

They nuzzled into his neck, hiding from the world, probably. He fancied he could feel the heat of their cheeks. There was so much happiness swelling up inside him that he thought he didn’t stand a chance of holding it all.

“If we’re…” Chara started, moving their mouth back a little so he could hear them. “If we’re going to do this, you have to promise me you’re going to stop being the city’s personal errand boy.”

“No complaints there,” he said so quickly that they laughed. He was getting increasingly concerned that his heart was going to burst with happiness. “But wait: what about my tab?”

“That?” They lifted themself up so that their nose was just short of touching his. “Asriel, you broke my curse. I think you’ve already paid it.”

“But what if I want it back?”

They blinked a few times, and then their just-slightly-predatory smile was back. “You’re way too stupidly generous, you know that, right?”

“I’m not. This is pure selfishness,” he said, moving to kiss the side of their neck down to their collarbone. And it was, he knew. It was selfish and hungry and he could only hope from their lack of protest that they knew that.

And if it wasn’t princely behaviour, well, he’d just have to learn to hide it as best he could. If it was for Chara, he’d do anything.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hydrangeas - heartlessness, frigidity, gratitude at being understood  
> Daisies - Innocence, purity and faith
> 
> I haven't written something that fluffy in months - I think I'm out of practice, so thank you to everyone who gave me ideas! Sorry I couldn't fit them all in.


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